The Fawcett Avenue Conscripts are a group of table-top wargamers who get together every Thursday night to enjoy some gaming, some beer and a few chuckles courtesy of our hobby.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Quiet Please! Sister of Silence

"No magic for you!" Sister Superior of the Silent Sisterhood, witch-hunting warriors of the 30k setting

Another little 30k bit to post today. This is a Sister Superior from the "Sisters of Silence", a kind of militant order of warrior women who fight in service of the Emperor in GW's 30k setting. While they sport ornate armour, weapons and fancy swords, they are marked primarily for their abilities against psykers. These warriors all share a genetic anomaly that makes them "psychic nulls" - they essentially shut down psyker powers.

With that kind of power, you can see how they would be a big asset to the Censure Fleet sent to bring the Thousand Sons to heel on the world of Prospero. The warp-fueled powers of the XV Legion will falter with the Silent Sisters about on the battlefield, leaving them only conventional means to try and deal with the Space Wolves.

Capes look dramatic, but they make painting the figure a real pain in the ass

This is a multi-part plastic figure from GW's "Burning of Prospero" box set. While the sculpt-work is lovely, even incredible, I must say I find the models to be frustrating overall. It seems that GW likes to be increasingly bonkers with the organization of some of its plastic figure frames. Where, say, the Space Marine model frames work nicely so you can mix-and-match parts, other frames, like these, are very specific and inflexible. This is really true with the cloaks. These figures basically need to be built with their cloaks attached, making the figure much more difficult to paint than it would be otherwise.

Scrolls and inspirational writings, anti-witch marks and other things seen on these figures hint at the overall setting changes that will be seen in the 40k setting

The other little quibble that gets me is the overall size of the figure. While the Sisters are no doubt well-trained and equipped for battle, they are still "regular" humans, and should be sized and proportioned in that way in comparison to the hulking, genetically engineered Astrates. While they are indeed a little more slender in some ways compared to the super-human Astrates figures, they still manage to take up the same amount of room as a Space Marine, and still need 32mm bases. I hate scale creep...

While they look a little smaller than a Space Marine, the Sisterhood figures are still too large in my opinion...scale creep...

But, my blathering aside, you get the choice of arming the Sisters with swords, bolters or flamers. And as I said, the sculpting really is remarkable. They should be fun to use in the "Prospero" game, and also be useful for different narratives in our general 30k gaming.

I have only painted the one Sister of Silence figure so far as it is required for the first scenario of the "Burning of Prospero" box game. You get five of them all together in the box, and I will paint the balance of the squad after I finish painting all of the Thousand Sons models. Hope to have more of that later this week...

A hint from Duncan the painting servitor that I appreciated when painting my Skitarii - always paint the inside of the cloak first, before anything else - even the legs. That way you don't have to reach in around anything you already painted. But you already probably figured that out!

Nice job on these. Fair point on the size, but then perhaps they had an eye on primaris marines who will eventually totally replace..... errrr...... work alongside the existing models so you don't need to buy all new ones ;)

GW's Q&A said the "Primaris" Marines would not replace the previous Marine models. I know we can all put our faith in the widely-issued question-and-answer document of a publicly traded company with the record of keeping its fans' and customers' faith like Games Workshop...